2016年5月18日 星期三

one-upmanship (1952)

The 21st century’s space race is between Jeff Bezos, the boss of Amazon, and Elon Musk, the boss of SpaceX and Tesla. In their one-upmanship, the duelling entrepreneurs are bringing down the cost of access to space.

Representation of the People Act 1867

Its catchier name is the Second Reform Act. The groundwork was achieved 35 years earlier when the Reform Act 1832 cleaned up various unwholesome aspects of the electoral system by eliminating some of the whiffiest of the rotten boroughs and enlarging the electorate by 60%. However, that still left most of the population unable to vote, so the successor act enfranchised a swath of the working classes. At first only "respectable" workers were to be privileged, but political oneupmanship led to the Conservatives venturing more drastic reforms that made most urban householders eligible (provided they were male, naturally).